Chess symbol rotations (revisited)

Garth Wallace gwalla at gmail.com
Mon Apr 13 16:18:54 CDT 2015


I'm much further along on my research for a proposal to encode
heterodox chess symbols. I asked about terms for rotations last
November and was told that the terms in use in the standard are
CLOCKWISE-ROTATED and ANTICLOCKWISE-ROTATED (e.g. U+29BC), but I
wasn't sure I would be proposing the knights in intermediate 45 degree
rotations. Now I believe I have sufficient evidence for their use in
running text, which brings up the question of how to name them. In my
current draft I'm using terms like BLACK 45 DEGREE CLOCKWISE-ROTATED
CHESS KNIGHT and WHITE 135 DEGREE ANTICLOCKWISE-ROTATED CHESS KNIGHT
for them. It seems awkward, but I can't think of any better naming
convention. The precedent in arrows for terms like NORTH EAST doesn't
seem applicable: chess symbols have defined bases but do not
technically point in a direction. The SignWriting rotation modifiers
aren't much help when it comes to naming, since they are just
numbered. The clock faces use 30 degree increments.

Also, would it be useful to include a section on current practice,
such as existing fonts and LaTeX?


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